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Canadian clean tech exports hit $5.8 billion in 2012

By JUSTIN BULL

March 13, 2014

The Canadian clean technology sector reached new heights in 2012, exporting more than $5.8 billion of goods and services. The industry is poised to keep growing, according to Analytica Advisors, who predict that clean tech will be a $50 billion industry by 2022.

This potential underscores the strength of the clean tech industry in Canada. In 2012 the sector experienced a growth rate of 10 percent, compared with 1.7 percent across the rest of the economy. Clean tech is increasingly export-oriented: 74 percent of companies are exporting today, and 85 percent expect to be exporters by 2015.

Clean tech is generating thousands of new jobs, creating 41,100 positions across Canada with an average growth rate of 6 percent per year. Clean tech also tends to hire younger employees, with about 20% of its workforce aged 30 or less.

Investments in clean tech between 2008 and 2012 totaled almost $5 billion, with $1 billion spent on R&D in 2012 alone. But despite large sums and impressive growth rates, the Canadian clean tech industry has captured only 1 percent of the global market.

Céline Bak, President of Analytica Advisors, called clean tech “one of Canada's best kept secrets.” She lauded Canadian companies for “bringing solutions to some of the world's most technically demanding problems” and suggested that as the industry keeps growing, Canada will take notice.

Clean tech includes more than 10 sectors, including companies that focus on environmental performance, resource efficiency, and upstream and downstream energy use. Successful companies are increasingly those that find opportunities to support Canada’s traditional economic sectors, such as mining, energy production and construction.